Independent Taipei City mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) drew mixed reactions with his remarks that former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) regime was “a model in politics” for all to learn from.
In a Facebook post, mentioning a conversation with a supporter on former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, Ko said: “I’ve always believed that during Chiang Ching-kuo’s era, there were strict regulations on government officials’ ethics, as well as on relationships between government and business — this should become a model in politics for all those in power to learn from.”
The remarks soon drew criticism from Facebook users.
“Ko should stop saying things against his own will to win support from not-so-hardcore pan-blue supporters, otherwise he may lose his own hardcore supporters,” Facebook user Jason Jiang said. “Government corruption was much worse during Chiang Ching-kuo’s time, it’s just that no [media outlet] dared to report on it.”
On the other hand, another Facebook user, Huang Ching-jen (黃敬仁), agreed with Ko, saying that his grandmother is a diehard pan-green camp supporter who never cast a vote for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), but would praise the KMT’s Chiang Ching-kuo as a president who had contributed much to the nation.
“There could be bad people in a good political party, and good people in a bad political party,” he said.
However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) panned Ko over his remarks, saying that he is “a person who claims to be smart, but is now showing his stupidity.”
“Before history renders justice to the people of Taiwan, any comment that overlooks the big crimes that a dictator committed and only focuses on tiny good things he did is superficial,” Tuan said.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) also disagreed with Ko.
“Ko doesn’t need to praise Chiang Ching-kuo — this will upset pan-green supporters and prevent them from voting for him,” Hsu said. “It’s more important for him to elaborate his policy agenda to voters.”
Ko’s rival, the KMT’s mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文), said Ko was only making such remarks for the election.
“Ko often says something one day, and changes his mind another,” Lien said. “This is all for the election — he’s not necessarily speaking his mind.”
Lien’s campaign office executive director Alex Tsai (蔡正元), who is also a KMT legislator, echoed Lien’s remarks, saying that Ko criticized Chiang Ching-kuo only a few months ago and is now saying he is a model politician.
“Ko is getting better and better at speaking according to his audience,” Tsai said.
Ko defended his comments by saying that, looking from a historical perspective, “Chiang Ching-kuo has brought more contributions than woes to Taiwan,” stressing that he would not worry about losing support from pan-green voters, “because history is history.”
Deh Tzu-tsai (鄭自才), one of the principal plotters in an attempt to assassinate Chiang Ching-kuo during a US visit in 1970, said Ko does not understand much about Taiwan politics.
“I urge Ko to go back and work as a doctor. He should not be involved in politics... Ko should focus on the medical field so he can contribute more to Taiwan,” Deh said during an interview with the Chinese-language Apple Daily News yesterday.
“Why would people learn from dictators? Would someone want to learn from Hitler? It is sad to hear Ko saying such things,” Deh said.
Peter Huang (黃文雄), who pulled the trigger in the failed 1970 assassination attempt, said that corruption would not have been reported on during Chiang Ching-kuo’s rule.
“What cases of corrupt government officials and their collusion with business circles went to judiciary investigation, and how many cases should have been investigated, but were not? [The investigation of cases] depended on the consideration by the one-individual dictatorship and one-party rule at the time,” Huang said.
Additional reporting by Jason Pan
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching